


Harvesting Stones

by Lemon Drop (quercus)



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-07-21
Updated: 2000-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-07 15:42:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quercus/pseuds/Lemon%20Drop





	Harvesting Stones

"Fuck off. I don't talk about it to anyone.

"Asshole."

Channel Six hired a new reporter; guess he's getting up to speed. If he approaches Sandburg, I'll fucking rip his fucking head off. Simon'll call his boss, tell him to back off. If he ever wants an interview with anybody at the PD, he'll back off. Not much of a story, anyway.

Except to me and Sandburg.

Thank Christ Sandburg's back at the station, finishing up some crappy report.

I can hear the others talking about me, warning the new guy. Good. Maybe Simon won't have to call. Their voices are hushed, respectful. Fearful. I try not to smile too grimly; don't want to frighten the little order-taker.

"Yeah, the veggie deluxe on nine-grain, extra avocado, with Jarlsberg; and one of the specials, the peppered turkey, on whole wheat, with extra cheese. Uh, jack. Nothing to drink. Thanks.

"Here, add these cookies in. Yeah."

The reporters scatter as I step back to wait for the food. I see a couple I know and nod, unsmiling.

Blair wouldn't approve, I know. He's trying to convince me to see the divine within every person, to be respectful. But he's young; he doesn't know that reporters are from hell and deserving of nothing.

"Thanks."

It's good to get back into the fresh rain, out of the overheated tension of the deli. I won't be going back there again any time soon; too close to the newsroom.

The drive back isn't long enough to calm me down, but I don't have time to cruise around, find some asshole to cite or arrest or maybe shove around. Besides, Sandburg would kill me for taking my anger out on someone that way. I roll the window down, let the air blow into my face, and take a deep breath. It feels good.

I drive to the park and pull into a space near an enormous oak. Just sit there, getting wet from the rain blowing in the open window, and breathe. It's a joy to breathe, Blair once told me not too long ago. He was smiling at me when he said it.

So I breathe.

When the pain in my chest relaxes its grip on me, I take a Tagamet and a swallow of water from the bottle Blair makes me keep in the truck. So you won't get dehydrated, he says. Another deep breath, like he taught me all those years ago. Just one after another.

Okay. I'm okay. And Blair's fine. He's back at the station, working. So I head there now, suddenly anxious to see him, hear his heart and lungs working. He'll know something's wrong. He'll work it out of me, although I will make him work for it, and then I'll get the scolding. I already know what he'll say. Thinking about it makes me smile.

Simon calls him the kid, but Sandburg and I both know who's in charge here. I can relax and let him take care of the important things. Never could do that before. Not even when I was a kid was there someone to take care of the important things for me. Only Blair.

So I'm smiling when I see him hunched over his desk. I hate those new glasses he had to get. The lenses are thicker, distort his eyes a bit. A constant reminder of my failings. But he looks up, he already knows I'm here, and in that one look I can tell he knows I've been wildly angry and managed to calm myself down.

He rolls his chair over to my desk. I plop the deli bag down but he just looks at me. "It's nothin'," I assure him. He gives me a look that I know means he knows I'm lying. That he doesn't believe me for a heartbeat.

"Whadya want to drink?" is all he says, though, and I give him all my change for the break room pop machine.

"Usual."

"Nunh-unh. Too much caffeine. Choice two?"

I roll my eyes. "You choose, then." He'll get me what he thinks I should have anyway; I don't know why he bothers to ask.

So. I'll hear about it tonight, then. I rip open the bag and get the sandwiches ready. I'm reading the report when he gets back with the two sweating cans. As always, it's well-written, succinct, clear. If anybody actually read these reports, they'd be impressed.

* * *

"You gonna tell me what happened at lunch?" he asks on the way home. Staring out the window, watching the trees whip in the wind that's come up. Stormy night.

"Nothin'," I tell him again. He punches me in the arm, right out of the blue. "Hey!"

"Don't lie to me," he says mildly.

"You lie all the time," I point out.

"That's different. And not to you."

"You told me we had beer and we didn't. You told me they were out of roast beef but they weren't. You told me --"

"Okay, I lie to you." He grins at me. "That doesn't mean you can lie to me. What happened?"

We're home. I grab my stuff and hop out of the cab, locking the door behind me. Blair waits for me under the awning, and then we go up in the elevator. It's the end of a long day; I get to take the elevator. In the mornings, we walk down.

Once we're in, hanging up our dripping coats, we stop in the kitchen to take off all our gear. When Blair became a cop, I cleaned out one of the kitchen drawers and we keep our stuff there. Keys, too.

He peels off a damp layer and heads to the bathroom. My turn to make dinner. It's cold and rainy; that means soup. I start chopping onions, garlic, potatoes, carrots. Some kind of a stew. Maybe with dumplings. Like everything between us, I ad lib.

When he gets out of the shower, pink and warm, he takes over. When I get out, it's stew, and he did make dumplings.

So I get a break until after dishes, which he washes but I dry.

We talk about work, we talk about friends, we talk about football, we talk about the storm we hear crashing against the balcony windows. I get out a couple hurricane lamps; he gets out his stash of meditation candles. I build up the fire.

A sudden gust rattles the doors and windows. I should double-glaze them. I stand trying to trace the slight draft I feel, focusing on the subtle air currents moving around me. If I look, I can almost see them, moving, changing the texture, circling . . .

I look down at his hand on my forearm. "No zoning," he says firmly, and leads me to the couch. My mouth is dry, but he has tea waiting.

We don't talk for a long time. He sits next to me, his hand still on my arm. I put my hand over it. At last, I say softly, "Heard something."

"About us?"

I nod. "You know. When. That May." That May that you died, but he knows. May 20. The Feast of Saint Bernardine of Siena, patron saint of words.

"Who was talking?"

"Reporters." He nods. He knows the deli, knows that the tv guys frequent it as much as cops do. Probably they go *because* the cops do. He rubs my arm comfortingly.

"People will talk, you know. You can't give yourself an ulcer over this."

I want to run away. I can't bear to hear him speak of these things so lightly.

I turn to him. Young and handsome. Beautiful, really, not that I'd tell him that. He'd punch me again. Even though I'm bigger and in better shape, he has no fear of me anymore. I burned that right out of him. He manhandles me around, yells at me, gets in my face. I yell back, even push him, but always, always, I end up doing what he wants.

Once he slapped me. I hated that. I don't let myself get that angry any more, so I guess it worked. I guess I learned a lesson, all those months ago. After the fountain and all.

He's angry, too; he's an angry guy. Hides it well under that smile. But when it's just us and I piss him off, he doesn't hide anything. That's from me, too. I don't know if that's good or not.

Tonight, though, he just strokes my arm. Very comforting. I relax against him and think again what a fucking weird relationship we have. Like nothing else I've ever experienced. We're like, I don't know, like an entire family to each other. Father, mother, husband, brother, son, and the crazy uncle in the attic, all rolled up into one. We take turns playing the different roles. Tonight, tonight, I'm not sure who I need him to be.

I lean a little closer and he slips his arm around me. Sitting on the couch, cuddling. I feel like an idiot sometimes. Doesn't stop me, though. For one thing, Blair wouldn't let it. But for another, you just don't get what you need *and* what you want very often. And Blair's presence is both. So I lean a little harder, a little further, and his other arm goes around me and I lean against his chest, listening to his heart and lungs, centering myself on him.

He pats my back. "What happened?" he asks again, his voice rumbling in his chest against my ear. I shake my head a bit. He leans his head against mine. The rain thunders down and the wind slams into the building. I sense the cold. The damp.

But Blair is warm and dry.

The lights fail suddenly. I close my eyes and remain locked in his arms. Safe for a while. The fire is warm on my back and he's warm against my chest.

"Sit up for a minute," he whispers, and I do, opening my eyes again. He takes his glasses off and puts them on the coffee table, then lies down. I lie almost on top of him, and he pulls the afghan over us. I put my head back on his chest and listen to him breathe. Listen to him live.

He slowly, gently rubs my back. "What happened?" he asks yet again, but his voice is soft and sleepy. I smile against his sweatshirt, and listen to him breathe.

Breathing is a joy.

There is nothing I want more than this, to lie here in Blair's arms, relaxed, knowing we have the entire evening ahead of us. The entire night, even, if we want, or need, and sometimes we do. My head on his chest so I can listen, fill myself with Blair.

He strokes the back of my head and neck. His breathing is slowing down, as is his pulse. Soothing himself as he soothes me. Then he gently shakes me. "What happened?"

I sigh against his shirt. Here, like this, I can tell him a little. "Called him an asshole. Wanted to know. He wanted to know what it felt like." I have to pause for a few seconds. "To bring you back," I finally whisper.

"Aww," he breathes, and hugs me briefly, then starts stroking my neck again, relaxing those muscles for me. "It's okay. People will talk. You know that." He tells me that all the time, but I still don't like it.

I grumble wordlessly. Yeah, I know they talk, but not to me, not about him, not about that. I'm a bit riled up again, but Blair's touch calms me.

What we have calms me. I can't let myself remember how we got here, can't permit myself to fully acknowledge the pain and fear and wrong-headedness that led us to this place. I just focus on us, here, now.

When I'm calmer, he says, "You did bring me back, you know. You did it."

I shake my ahead, not raising my eyes to his. We've had this talk before. I know the scolding comes next.

"You did," he insists in his gentle voice, his teacher's voice. "You called me back. I had to come to you. Why won't you admit that?"

He knows why. Fear-based responses. I'm afraid of the responsibility. He takes care of me, I take care of him: it's a deal we cut years ago, one I'm happy with. I can't think beyond that. The water's fine, he told me, but I'm still afraid.

"Shh, shh," he comforts, even though I haven't said a word. "It's okay, buddy. Everything's okay."

And when he speaks to me in that voice, I believe him. Everything is okay.. Here. Now. In his arms on this rainy, windy night.

This is our secret, these evenings spent like this. Before we discovered this, the rest of my life -- the other people in it -- had lost significance. Before Blair discovered what we needed. Even Simon, an old friend, had seemed to grey out, to fade into the background. No matter how sharp my senses, some quality was absent.

Years ago I had been driving through eastern Washington, coming home from a fishing trip. Mostly agricultural land, the fields were being prepared for planting. As I approached some nameless hundred acres, I saw men and women stooping in the whitened fields. For a moment I thought the land had been sown with salt, and then I realized they were preparing to plant vineyards. But the image of the barren field yielding nothing but stones has stayed with me.

My life after Blair died was like that field. Hard and stony and unforgiving. After he died -- after I killed him -- we struggled along for months and months. A terrible time, and one I'm ashamed of. Not until he threw his life away for me yet again did I realize what I was doing. I look back on those months and realize that the field that was my life was being sown with salt, destroying its fertility and the possibility of a future. Without Blair, there would have been nothing to harvest but stones.

When I heard Blair's voice over the television at work, I heard the voice of Jonah from the whale. Of Persephone from Hades. Of Orpheus from Hell. Only Jesus can raise the dead, but somehow, at that fountain, Blair heard me and decided to return to me. He followed me into Hell again, and yet again. And when he spoke at the press conference, he in turn called me back, demanded that I return to him. It works both ways.

What happens in the nights we spend in the loft is no one's business but our own. But because of them, I understand my place in the universe now. He's taught me well. He teaches me each night. He is my teacher and my guide, the person I respect most in this world. The person I know will wait for me no matter what.

And when this life is over, I have no doubt we'll be together again. I was raised a Catholic; I believe in an afterlife. I believe in Blair.

He's falling asleep now, here on the couch. I should wake him, get him to bed. But I don't want to be separated from him even long enough for that. So I let him drift off, floating into a peaceful dream while I stand guard. He'll wake again in a bit; he'll need to pee, need a drink of water, and then he'll tell me what to do.

"Just breathe, Jim," he'll say, lovingly, firmly, as he strokes my neck and back. I shift a bit, trying not to weigh so heavily on him, but I keep my head tucked against his chest, so I can hear his heart and lungs.

Breathing is a joy, Blair told me. His breathing. His breath against my face, his heartbeat in my ear. A harvest of a different sort.


End file.
